President Ma Ying-jeou was campaigning around rural areas when he accidentally found out that a fire had erupted in his backyard -- James Soong's tiny People First Party (PFP) -- which used to be a solid part of the ruling KMT-led "pan-blue" camp -- has vowed to win enough seats to form a legislative caucus and even Soong himself has hinted that he might enter the presidential race.

......

Unfortunately, Ma has not perceived that the real problem facing him is not the PFP defection. Rather, it is the issue of political wisdom and campaigning schemes.

Ma has not perceived the crisis that he is losing the trust of some two million "pan-blue" voters, who, according to the PFP, are wavering in their support, providing nutrition to milk the PFP's defection bid.

Another Ma crisis is that he has spent most of his time on "low politics," or economic and social welfare issues at the grassroots level, instead of "high politics" that relate to political power and morale on the national level.

......

He may not know that he is risking losing the votes of some two million potential waverers, who include the "social elite," opinion leaders and his former staunch supporters.

Instead of worrying about the price of rice wine, Ma should spend more time sorting out why he is losing the trust of swing voters.

Soong is not Ma's problem. Ma's problem is that he does not know what exactly disappointed voters are fretting about with regard to his presidency.

The issue for UDN is Ma's campaign, not his policies. But UDN vastly exaggerates; there aren't 2 million PFP votes out there; the last time the PFP got that many votes was in 2001; by 2004 this had fallen to 1.3 million. In the most recent election the KMT recouped almost all the votes, seats, and politicians it had lost to the PFP. Disaffected Blues might vote Soong, but surely everyone must know a Soong vote is a wasted vote. Perhaps the China Times poll above shows he'll attract merely the anti-Ma Blue votes that wouldn't have gone for Ma anyway.

The DPP released poll results this week that have Ma and Tsai neck and neck at 49.9 and 50.1. Believe at your own risk.
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China is now Brazil's biggest trade partner. Meanwhile the US is going to go into another recession. Great policy move there, Washington, way to look forward. That will really help us curb China's influence.

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Both polls are problematic. For the China Times poll, you are right that, when 30 percent of respondents are not accounted for (not undecided) it is hard to take the poll seriously. The pollsters have not done their job well.

Alternatively, the DPP poll concerns me by the lack of undecideds or declined to answers. How likely is it that 100 percent of Taiwan has made up its mind?

The factions and local political players dislike Ma. Song has enough juice with the old guard to know this. The factions and locals want to hold out for more cash, but what are they going to do, vote DPP or not vote so Tsai gets in. There is Song though who presents enough of a threat to Ma from his flank that the local power brokers can start asking for more projects and cash in their respective areas. It's a win-win for everyone. Especially because I believe the presidential and legislative yuan elections are on the same day. Thereby giving the KMT reason to hold back cash.

Everyone knows Song probably can't win, but they also know that he can probably cause Ma to lose and influence the presidential betting. Song could also be such an egomaniac that he believes he can win or is simply being used by those who want more loot for their area and themselves.

From my light understanding of Taiwanese politics, only the western central counties are really in play.

There's a strong chance that me and plenty of other blue voters could vote New Party or PFP with our party votes in the up comming election, mainly because we feel that they'll stick with the KMT on the real core issues (like cross strait) anyway but it's a good idea to at least have a little bit of divergence of power.

Given the DPP polls prior to the 08 election, that their poll shows Tsai with only a tiny lead over Ma should be a serious concern to the DPP camp.

Song's obviously making a fus now because he can, the election is close enough that the KMT can't just ignor him, and he obviously doesn't feel like retiring yet, so why not take this opportunity? maybe he'll end up as the Premier or something, a position many ppl long viewed him as being suited for.

In the end, if the DPP wants to pull this off they really need to start a battlefield on something completely new, almost all the stuff they've tried so far inevitablly gets dragged back into cross examining how they did it from 00-08 and almost nothing there they can be completely consistent about . That or when the Ma camp seem to show some chink in their armour they rush ahead only to make major mistakes of their own to get countered.

I'll point out something though, for a lot of the elderly voters that I've talked to, it is hard for them to vote for an unmarried women, it's obviously a conservative view but not a particularly surprising one comming from that group of voters. who makes up a larrrrge portion of the votes and is usually considered a solid base for both party .

(If you look at it, only one US president wayyy back in the 19th C was a bachelor)

2012 will be an interesting race, and i will predict that ma shall win with a very wide margin. i believe the ECFA is bring him the support from the captilists and the farmers. the middle class who has been suffering will be too scard to vote for tsai, who starts talking like a-bien without committing anything in substance. tsai practices too much jargons and fake liberalism that she is only winning the hearts of the first time voters or younger people. but the scary part that tsai need to know is, sad as it is, ma does already manage to integrate the taiwan economy too much into the chinese one. people will need to weigh carefully what it will mean if tsai is elected. i have seen the fear in those middle class dpp supporters and i suspect very much that they will ditch ma in such an important national election (referendum). all polls are more like a smoke. tsai will receive high poll results as most people asked know that they are not actully voting so the poll results can be distinctly different from the actual voting.

"for a lot of the elderly voters that I've talked to, it is hard for them to vote for an unmarried women."

Or they just want to find all the possible excuses not to vote for Tsai. That is how the human psychology works unfortunately. I do not believe elderly people can be so dumb as to judge others on their martial status, but I am very certain it is difficult for older people to switch side (from my own experience, they will find every possible reasons to keep supporting KMT...) If Tsai is married, they will not vote for her for other reasons such as her husband looks like a moron or she is just her husband's puppet etc etc etc.

So for the pan green supporters, once again, the only way is to keep trying to convince people to support Tsai. As for silly excuses like the martial status, I guess the only way is try to make them to look at the bigger picture instead, although like I said before, they are a very stubborn bunch.

I agree Tsai's marital status is probably not much of an issue. Chen Chu has managed to maintain her little fiefdom in the conservative south and she too is unmarried. This reminds me, as it does others it seems, of the silly speculation in 2008 that farmers and working class men wouldn't vote for Ma because he's a sissy.

Governments on both sides of the Strait view Taiwan as a Province of China. The problem with the UN's text was not that it referred to Taiwan as a province, but that (if I recall) the Taiwan provincial government was not a party to ECFA.

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